Kenny Garvey, 11, lives next to a playground in Falls Creek, Jefferson County.

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On the other side of the playground lies an empty field where the old Jackson China Company factory used to produce ceramic dishes decorated with lead paint.

For decades, the company dumped lead waste into the nearby lagoon.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the entire field has been contaminated with lead and that the lagoon has been turned into lead sludge that goes 12 inches deep.

Channel 4 Action News’ Jim Parsons walked the area without seeing signs warning him of the dangers.

Garvey, who said he’s gone swimming in the lagoon before, told Parsons he’s never been told the water was contaminated with lead, nor was he made aware it could be dangerous.

A Channel 4 Action News investigation found federal and state health officials issued a report four years ago recommending the EPA put up “signs (that) should warn individuals that significant exposures to the detected levels of lead in these areas could result in adverse health effects ... especially if younger children visited the site.”

Signs have been posted at ALSCO Park in Natrona Heights telling smokers not to light up, but there are no signs telling people the ball field was built on top of a landfill where the pesticide lindane was dumped for 50 years.

In Moon, a fence keeps people out of the Breslube-Penn Superfund site that rests alongside the popular Montour Trail.

But monitoring wells on the other side of Montour Run show that high levels of cancer-causing dichloroethane have migrated under the stream through groundwater.

“I mean, you see levels that are 10-20 times what we would allow in drinking water. There are carcinogens and other hazardous chemicals that can cause all sorts of health problems -- liver damage, nervous system (damage),” said Myron Arnowitt, of Clean Water Action.

But without any warning signs, people who fish in the area and take their kids down by the water’s edge have no idea what lies beneath.

“There are usually kids and fathers down there. They're usually fishing or playing in the water,” said Tom Mangan, who uses the trail.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., told Parsons there’s no question there should be signs to warn people.

“We've got to be able to meet the reasonable expectations of citizens, of taxpayers,” said Casey. “And I think in this instance, if there are no signs, no warning, those reasonable expectations are not being met, and we've got to do something about it.”